


Full Circle

by fikgirl



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-02
Updated: 2010-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 21:11:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fikgirl/pseuds/fikgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight months on and the Doctor and Martha meet again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for all of Season 3 of Doctor Who, particularly Last of the Time Lords.

The last thing Martha Jones expected to see when she arrived home from a hectic day in the trauma center of the hospital was a large blue police call box in the middle of her lounge. The only thing that surprised her more than seeing it was the skip-leap-skip that her heart gave at the sight of it.

Eight months ago she walked out of the TARDIS, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other and to not look back because it was the best thing for her. It was the best thing for Martha Jones. She passed her exams (easily) and moved forward with her life. More than once she dialed the mobile number, but always hung up before it connected. She wanted to see The Doctor; she didn't want to see The Doctor. Martha was stronger without him; she was weaker without him.

She distracted herself with work, with dating. Dating was too much, too soon, too crazy. Tom wanted it all – the wife, the kids, the dog, the house. Martha wanted to practice medicine, save lives. (Martha wanted to run from danger and save the world.)

A month ago, she and Tom parted ways. A week ago she dialed that mobile number on five separate occasions, but just kept hanging up.

So yes, Martha was more than a little bit happy to see the TARDIS in the middle of her lounge.

Seeing the Doctor leaning against the TARDIS, looking as though he (and the TARDIS) belonged there? Definitely tipped the scales beyond happy to ecstatic and Martha had to stop herself from opening her arms and running to him.

"What're you doing here?" Martha asked, her voice only rising and cracking and breathless a wee bit.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" He smiled, that crooked-fool-you-into-thinking-he's-all-boyish-innocence-and-not-a-centuries-old-time-traveling-alien grin that typically could charm the trousers (and the pants) off anyone. The Doctor pushed out of his comfortable slouch, some subconscious part of her mind noted that the suit was blue and the trainers red, and waggled a finger at her, "You never called."

"I've been busy," Martha averted her gaze, just for a moment, before she got caught up in that winsome smile and innocent act and those too-old dark eyes. _Getting over you_, was the unspoken after thought.

"Didn't even let me know that you passed your exams." The rustle of fabric, the padding of rubber soles on carpet told her that he moved and Martha looked up quickly, watching him prowl slowly around her lounge. "Top marks if my information was correct."

"Where'd you get your information?" Martha made a step, then two in his direction and stopped. She didn't know what she wanted yet, and she pretended that she didn't know why he's there because even though she's had a year and eight months to figure herself out and get over him, there's that attraction that still remains like the addictive fleeting after taste of a pleasant sweet. "Have you been spying on me?"

Martha said it as a joke, but she half hoped it was the truth and half hated herself for hoping. She forced herself to remember Tom and their good times and how much she loved (and still loves) him, and she tried to summon some anger at the man (alien) invading her home for showing how just how much bigger the universe really is.

The Doctor glanced back at her, over his shoulder, small smile, that I've-got-a-secret-that-I'm-not-going-to-share smile teasing the corners of his mouth, before turning back to tilt his head thoughtfully and study her paper. Yes, Martha knew the Doctor, still knew his ways and his words and that made her smile.

He made a tsking-tching dismissive noise. "Just keeping an eye on a brilliant doctor is all."

"Top marks doesn't make me brilliant." Martha argued half-heartedly. She was proud of her accomplishment, but being proud sometimes felt wrong, even when she earned it and deserved it as her sister, Tish, so often pointed out to her.

"'Course you are!" The Doctor spun around then, his face and eyes alight. He didn't so much as walk as he did bounce, and Martha imagined she could feel the energy building up in him and radiating out. "I only take the best."

The words startled her and façade of careful indifference and cautious playfulness dropped along with her jaw. Before her brain could process a response to the words, the Doctor gave a manic grin, clapped his hands and made it back to the TARDIS door in two easy jump-strides. Throwing open the door, he bounded inside, words trailing out behind him, "Come on then, a whole universe to see and you get to pick the when and the where."

Martha's feet carried her the short distance to the open TARDIS door before she ground to a halt. The TARDIS key (he never asked for it back and she hadn't given it to him) felt warm between her breasts where she wore it on a chain around her neck. It was so easy to follow him, to fall into old rhythms and old patterns and Martha had pushed herself too hard and talked herself blue too much to do that again.

"Doctor?" Martha called out. She peered into the warm glow of the TARDIS and watched the Time Lord dash about, throwing levers and switches. Most of which Martha was convinced did absolutely nothing but make the Doctor look like he was doing all the work and the TARDIS did nothing on her own.

"What are you waiting for, Miss Jones –" He looked up from the console and winked, smiling brightly, "I'm sorry, Doctor Jones. We don't have all day." Then he frowned, "But I guess we do. Anyway, doesn't matter. Where do you want to go to celebrate your success?"

"I don't – Doctor, I can't go anywhere. I can't just pick up and take off. I've obligations and –"

"Time machine."

Martha wondered if this was what alcoholics or gamblers (or choose your own addiction) dealt with every day. Her temptation stared right in her face, quite literally, and every cell of her being cried out to for her to cross that threshold and go for a ride across time and the stars. Her feet itched to move. Her hand found its way to the open door and stroked the smooth wood of the TARDIS door.

The walls closed in her and Martha struggled to breathe. She fought against the pull of time (and Time Lords) and the danger and adventure.

"I can't." Barely a whisper, but she could at least look at him as she said it. "I can't."

He stopped then, going totally still, looking more alien than human. The mania faded, replaced by something tired and knowing and older and heavier than anything Martha could ever imagine feeling or knowing. The Doctor looked at her, but not quite, fixed his attention just slightly above her left temple. "If I had told you then that I saw you, that I noticed you, that it all mattered and you mattered most of all, would you still have gone?"

It wasn't the question she expected.

"Yes." Martha breathed and the answer came from the heart and it wasn't the answer she expected to give in all the times she imagined being asked that question or some derivative. That single, simple word was cathartic and suddenly her feet could move and she could breathe again. "I had to take care of my family. I had to take care of me." There was no shame in admitting it, not now and there hadn't been then.

_Is it possible for anyone to not fall in love with him?_

The Doctor's eyes slid to hers, meeting them and seeing her, and Martha knew that he really was seeing her and not some long lost past or unreachable companion. This time the smile was fond and sad and proud all mixed into one and it crinkled the corners of his eyes and made them twinkle. "Good for you, Martha Jones. Good for you."

"That's why I can't go, you see," Martha crossed the threshold and started up the ramp. "It took me eight months, Doctor, to pull myself together, to see that there was more to life and more to me than waiting for you to notice me. I almost rang up, plenty of times, but I just couldn't be that girl again.

"And I certainly cannot be her now."

He stopped looking at her by the time she finished, frowning down at his shoes as he wiggled his feet. Something twisted inside of Martha. When she imagined seeing him again, it wasn't like this. In her imagination, she ran to him and felt his arms around her. They laughed and she was missed and Martha didn't have to explain to him all over again why traveling with him was a bad idea.

She stared at him, waiting. Martha sighed and the whole of the TARDIS seemed to sigh with her. Feeling like she'd walked this road before, Martha turned and headed back down the ramp, back to her life, back to a world without danger and manic-attention-deficit aliens.

"I'm sorry."

Those two words stopped her in mid-step.

"I did wrong about you, Martha. I thanked you for doing what came naturally, but I never noticed you. Now, I'm noticing all the time."

Martha turned back ever so slowly. The Doctor's eyes focused on her, open and lonely and saying more than his words could possibly convey. In that moment he was never more alien and more human to her. She heard his words, but it wasn't just his words. The Doctor didn't say what needed to be said, not in words, not now. Yet, Martha still heard it, in the tilt of his head, in the sad smile that tugged his mouth, in the dark of his eyes reflecting the TARDIS light.

"You don't deserve a second chance." Again, not the words she expected to say, but Martha gave up trying to figure out where this _reunion_ would go next. Her vision blurred and she blinked and something warm and wet slid down her cheek.

It tasted of salt.

"I know."

No matter how much she would reflect on it later, Martha would never recall who moved first. All she knew was that he hugged her and she hugged him and he still felt and smelled like she remembered, old and new and familiar and alien and so completely the Doctor.

When at last she let him go and he released her and set her on her feet, and he brushed away a wayward tear with a far more gentle touch than she'd ever imagined, Martha surprised herself yet again by joking it off. "I think I've got an eyelash in there."

"Yes, been having a lot of trouble with those rogue eyelashes on the TARDIS of late." The manic grin and energy returned in double force and he hopped away (and Martha blinked and had to have imagined that he licked the thumb that brushed away her not-tears), throwing levers and turning dials. "Where to Martha Jones? Celebration like this requires something special. I can take you to Delenor Quad Seven at the beginning of the Firestorms, absolutely stunning and breathtaking, you just would not believe the beauty in a million shooting stars lighting up the sky at night.

"Or there's New New New New York. We could visit old friends or make new ones. No, no, no, too many bad memories," The Doctor gave a slight shudder, but his frown disappeared as quickly as it appeared, "Or, how about –"

"Someplace quiet with beautiful scenery," Martha cut him off, stepping up beside him. She bumped him with her hip. "If I don't cut you off now, I just know that you'll go on nattering forever."

"You humans, even the brilliant doctor ones, so boring and unimaginative. Where's your sense of adventure?" He grabbed her hand and placed it on the lever beneath his. Martha hadn't drawn breath to say a word when their hands pulled back the lever and the TARDIS was off through time and space. They bumped and jostled around, and Martha laughed even as she held onto the console to keep her footing.

The Doctor met her gaze and what he saw there must have been good. With a grin big enough to split his face in two, he grabbed up her right hand with his left, "Welcome back, Doctor Martha Jones."

His hand was just as cool and smooth as Martha remembered. She didn't think it was possible to smile more, but somehow Martha did. "Glad to be back, Mr. Smith."

End

**Author's Note:**

> I always hated that Martha got treated so shabbily and that the Doctor never really 'fessed up to it. This was my healing fic.


End file.
